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Javanese Shadow Puppet Theatre

Wayang kulit (shadow puppet theatre), is Indonesia's oldest, most rigorous and most classical theatre form. The shadow puppet shows entertained and communicated history, philosophy and ethics. The stories of the Ramayana and Mahabharata mythology are thousands of verses long, and only a portion can be performed in one session.

With an orchestra of at least 20 pieces, dhalang (puppet masters) illustrate segments of the great Hindu epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata stories, in performances which play on through the night, still vibrant at dawn. Indonesian audiences usually bring children, buy food and toys at vendors on the periphery, sleep, socialize and return to the centre to watch the parts of a story that are particularly interesting to them or their children. It's a social context for a community to come together, celebrate rites of passage and acknowledge their shared artistic heritage.

The puppet master manipulates puppets, speaks all the voice parts, usually around 60 per performance, sings and directs the 20-plus piece percussion orchestra, the gamelan, all at the same time. The performances usually involve several languages and last a full night, from about 8 or 9 until just before dawn.

Javanese artist Joko Susilo, considered by many to be one of the best dhalang in Java, an island of Indonesia, learned wayang kulit from his father, and has seven previous generations of dhalang in his family. He started to learn the art at age 3, and at age 10 gave his first all-night performance. His parents had double-booked his father for the night, and the sponsor insisted that the performer be from the Susilo family. So Susilo took the assignment. He sat on a platform so he could lift the puppets high enough to be visible on the screen. He sat cross-legged with his right leg over his left so he could play a brass percussion instrument with his foot, thus directing the tempo of the gamelan. He didn't move from his spot, use a restroom or eat for nine hours. (In Java this kind of endurance is considered a spiritual gift.) His sister sang the female solos. The characters sometimes flew, and he had to stand up to get them high enough, and people could see how little he was. The audience loved watching a performance by such a young boy, and by the end, most of the people in the room, including his sister, were crying.

The story varies somewhat from performance to performance, as the dhalang creates the script as he goes along, remaining true to the original story but adding subplots, new characters or commentary on current conditions. There is usually a part where clowns appear, making jokes and talking about local events. They'll sometimes harass the musicians and almost always compliment the host.

Audiences at the wayang sit in front of the screen to watch the shadows or behind the screen to watch the dhalang and the gamelan. Most people in Indonesia like to sit behind the screen. They say they can imagine what the shadows look like, and they like to watch the action of the performers. In the West, however, audiences always sit in front of the screen.

Susilo's passion at this juncture of his career centres on teaching the art form. He wants to open the door wide to the English-speaking world to understanding the tradition. He has worked in English and he insisted on translating the stories, a difficult procedure because Javanese has many different sounds and uses a lot of metaphors that can't be easily translated.

Edited from an article by Amanda Weatherman.